There’s a very distinct, unpleasant flavor to news over the past 24 hours. And no, it isn’t diesel prices, FDI, or India’s chances at T20. After going through today’s papers and news reports online, I realized that there’s a type of story that’s come in all sections – from the local news about Ghaziabad, which I am a humble resident of, to national news, to global news, and even onto the opinion pages. The story, fundamentally (no pun), is about angry young men upset over a matter of faith. I don’t question anyone being upset over matters of faith – what I am concerned about is the people who are paying the price for their being upset. Who, mostly, have no clue what it’s all about and end up as collateral damage.

The Local News pages in today’s paper tell me the story of “more than 200 rioters, all of whom seemed to be aged between 20 and 25, who vandalized the local police station, set a PCR van ablaze, then charged into another police station and set it on fire.” The National Highway connecting Ghaziabad to Delhi was blocked for hours, and random passing vehicles stopped, damaged, in some cases burnt. The provocation: some local residents found some pages of a religious text with abuses scribbled on them near a mofussil railway station. The TOI report says “prima facie it appears that someone threw the book from a train… local residents approached the police and shouted slogans against the administration and the police”. How would the local thana police be responsible for, or prevent, anyone throwing pages of any religious text from a passing train? That point didn’t deter the crowd from subsequently damaging or burning a total of 50 vehicles, and, according to the police, indulging in robbery and looting.

Has anyone been arrested? No. Did anyone who was obstructed, robbed, or whose vehicle was burnt, have anything to do with the episode? Not that we know of, yet. A thousand-strong team of police did not arrest anyone after police stations were ransacked and police vehicles burnt. I’d like to see that restrained passivity if the mob was not charged on a ‘sensitive issue’ and was, for example, protesting a fake encounter or demanding action against a rapist.

The National News sections have registered the ‘Grand Mufti’ of Kashmir declaring, “I strongly condemn the act (the blasphemous film) and appeal to Kashmiris to register their protest against the film and even attack US citizens if they are seen anywhere in the Valley from tomorrow”. Since people don’t usually ask to see someone’s passport / visa before bashing them up when operating in groups, I assume this is blanket licence to assault any white-skinned guy, who, by extension, is deemed responsible for what an Egyptian settled in the US chooses to make. How would the Mufti respond to any deranged Pastor in the US – or the UK or Germany for that matter – asking for reciprocal action? In a world where some people of all faiths and all nationalities will be found in practically every country, apart from strengthening his own power position as fiery defender of his faith in his territory, what is the Mufti achieving? And why is he allowed to run amok unchecked?

The Editorial Page of HT today has an article on Tom Holland, a British author, who is facing death threats following the TV adaptation of his book on the origins of Islam. Channel 4 has cancelled the repeat showing of the documentary following threats to the author. The author of the piece, Farrukh Dhondy, has argued that while the merit / accuracy of the book is one debate, the issue has now ‘degenerated into the big question of free academic speech and how far intimidation should curtail it’. Following the Danish cartoonist episode and the Salman Rushdie threats, such responses add up, brick by brick, to cementing perceptions and drawing walls between communities and faiths – but at the first cut, again, action here is primarily based on intimidation, not because the Channel agrees with the protestors.

The International News pages, of course, for the past couple of days have been dominated by the violence in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, etc. The US ambassador to Libya’s violent death was on account of a film made by a random person who, as reports today indicate, has served 21 months in US prisons for bank fraud. For all the foreign policy stupidities of the US, the people actually killed had not the faintest responsibility for the film, did they? An AP report on the US ‘bracing for more protests’ from yesterday said the US is “bracing for another potential eruption of violent demonstrations in parts of the Muslim world after Friday’s weekly prayers – traditionally a time of protest in the Middle East and North Africa.” (itals mine).

What is the meaning of ‘traditionally a time of protest’? The issue being protested about changes, but ‘protest’ is consistent? Kashmir watchers will relate to the phase in the valley where Friday afternoon was seen by security forces as a time of protest – irrespective of the issue being protested against, which often changed week to week. Do we see where this is heading – or has already headed? The branding?

The question is not about whether a grievance is genuine or not. You can’t quantify sensitivity or angst, fair enough. Only those aggrieved can really decide whether the ground for their grievance matters deeply enough to them. There may – there often are – provocations. But such provocations can be applicable to anyone, any person, any faith, anytime. Some loony in some remote part of the world can make a film on any faith, any sect, any sub-sect that may not be palatable to those it is talking about. India has a billion people and another idiot may tomorrow scatter pages of another religious book through the windows of a passing train. Should we condone mass rioting?

The problem I have is that in all cases, the grievance is being addressed not through logic, or dialogue, or sentiment – it is being addressed through sticks, stones, guns and threats. The people whose vehicles were burnt simply because they were passing by are unlikely to take a very enlightened view of the police’s kid glove handling of the violence in Ghaziabad. A reader on the TOI site remarked that the government is quick to arrest a cartoonist but will not respond to the Mufti’s statement. The authorities tend to stand by and let mobs give expression to their outrage – and thereby legitimize recurrence of such expression. What they don’t realize is that they are legitimizing counter-expression tomorrow. Frenzied young men gathered in mobs tend to behave fairly similarly, irrespective of their surnames. But we have to tell them that it doesn’t work – not go soft and watch, then do the same when another group does that in another place, another time. You would really think that for a country born in the midst of frenzied crowds killing each other in the name of religion, we would have learnt that lesson by now.

A New York Times report titled ‘Protests over anti-Islam film flare beyond the Mideast’ has this perceptive quote from Rob Malley, the Middle East-North African program director for the International Crisis Group: “We have, throughout the Arab world, a young, unemployed, alienated and radicalized group of people, mainly men, who have found a vehicle to express themselves”.

Well, Mr Malley, the news is that this phenomena’s not just in the Arab world. It’s pretty much wider. Hell, it’s right next door, in Ghaziabad as well.

PS – an addition, at 3 pm, after 15-odd comments: I put this up on my Facebook page. For those wishing to read an ethnic / religious tone into the argument, I would wish to point out the first two people to have read and ‘liked’ the piece – and rest my case there

Author

Anshul Chaturvedi doesn't quite know how to sum up stuff about himself in a couple of lines, not smartly enough at least, so he isn't trying, either. Hopefully, you'll figure it out as you go along. He's shy of being tagged - he doesn't admit to 'belong to' any place or mindset easily, and hopes he hasn't been typecast at work either - yet! He attempts to scrutinise high society and the glam world from the vantage point that his current job as the Delhi Times editor gives him. Personally, he spends time reading through the likes of Vivekananda, Iacocca and Covey, watching cricket, and consuming everything on WW II that he can find.
He's a sort of a contrarian ('nonconformist' is overworked, na?). He likes to explore how managers can be monks. How things that are socially correct can be personally incorrect. How unlearning is often more relevant than learning. Being a 'philosopher' isn't his cup of tea, but he pleads guilty to philosophising on random issues - sometimes. As will his blog!
Follow Anshul Chaturvedi on Twitter

Anshul Chaturvedi doesn't quite know how to sum up stuff about himself in a couple of lines, not smartly enough at least, so he isn't trying, either. Hopefu. . .